Ants, Beatles and T-shirt diplomacy

Hola Carolyn,

First of all :

It only occurred to me after I posted the last entry that figures like Capitan Yack Hays and Sam Houston and the whole Texas Rangers phenomenon etc are probably almost household figures to you south of the border just like  Mounties, Radisson and Groselliers and Louis Riel are familiar to me.  In my academic stabs at History I spent far more time with European and Ancient history than American stuff, so lots of this was news.  Long before  University, though,  I got a fair dollop of it through the Hollywood filter.  The Disney Effect has been homogenizing and respinning continental history for me way up here in the Great White North all my life just as much as for my American neighbours - golly, Pluto!



Also, does that part Commanche bloodline  you mentioned last time mean that at some point, were you to find yourself in a situation that threatened your immediate survival, or the survival of a loved one, you could morph into a focused and formidable warrior - Commanche prowess as mounted adversaries was not limited to the men, I read. Do you feel instinctively comfortable and at home on horseback?  Could there be a storyline in that?  Or is it already out there, somewhat subliminally, in the Tracker stories perchance?



　

　

So here we are in the final few days before we must go from  lizards to blizzards. Ominously, we are today having the rare experience of being rained out. In the last 3 winters we’ve spent about 75 days in total on the Yucatan, all in Feb and early March ( the dry season) and have only had two days where overcast skies and rain were constants.

I have not forgotten the return trip last year and being ambushed by that early March storm. We're about 10 days further into spring in our return this time but the winter has been more relentless than has been seen in many a season in Southern and Central Ontario - so we will be travelling with a touch of trepidation, I'm sure.




　

Some ephemeral observations about our time here this year.



　
No Wigs for me in 2014.


　
I missed being able to see them here in Merida last year because we were leaving a couple of days before their scheduled performance but I was told they would be back this year about the same time. Well, they weren't and I will have to hope for next year perhaps. I was just so curious to see what a Mexican Beatles Tribute Band would be like.


In this, the 50th anniversary of their first appearance on Ed Sullivan ( please, don't tell me you missed it! ) I'm glad to report that the Fabs live on and offer the following forensic support.


We were in the busy tour office downtown in Merida setting up the Celestun jaunt.  From the front, the doors to the main office area were open. One could hear a cheap tinny radio crackling away while fingers flew over keyboards and phones were answered in the cubicles.  " Can't Buy Me Love " came on and I could see two or three desk jockeys mouthing the words or jogging their heads to the beat. An old fellow in the vestibule along with us was sitting there trying to get the gist of a fancy pair of binoculars. He was singing along as well. What's more...  he knew the words to the verses and the chorus!

 

There are, I've discovered in my internet radio meanderings, at least six different all Beatles-all the time web stations. A couple have been on the web for over a decade.  One broadcasts out of Peru and another is part of a set of stations from Holland each specializing  in one artist ( Elvis, Beatles, Bob Dylan ) or one musical genre. You can have your American  disco with a Dutch wrapping 24/7/365 if you wish. Holland has got to be one funky country.



Finally, I'm an emblem t-shirt type.  Tee's are my main uniform and I just can't stand to have one on that's completely blank. I brought along a couple of Beatles tees, plus my trusty Montreal Canadiens item, a Beastie Boys shirt my son got for me at one of their shows - yes, all he got me was a lousy t-shirt - and others.  


I've had  this Shea Stadium number on twice so far in our time here and been accosted by people with a " Hola, Bee- talls "  greeting each time. One included a thumbs-up, and was in the grocery store.



 There have been numerous instances both here and elsewhere, where a tee has been a cultural ice-breaker. The Canadiens shirt seems to do the best job ( I even got a thumbs-up in Romania for that one ) and the Beastie Boys have also elicited a common-bond moment or two in foreign

 

 

 

 

quarters. Oddly enough, I also have a dark blue ( well, faded blue now.) tee with Spam  in the characteristic font.  Simple, yet elegant, I must admit. It got me a number of greetings here. Once it earned a very enthusiastic response from a middle aged-guy at a southern Ontario winery who waxed ecstatic about how there is this state-wide contest in Hawaii every year for the best barbequed Spam recipes. He did this in a resonant voice from about twenty feet away while looking at a display of three-hundred dollar corkscrews.

 

The one tee-shirt tale I have left is possibly the strangest but hasn't fully unfolded yet.

It's like this. When I was down here last year and really got the old v-dub virus bad, I remember putting this pic up on the blog because it was such a scroddy, scruffy and, I felt, evocative specimen. Well, I like it so much that I put it on a yellow Tee and have it with me this year. What didn't strike me initially was that, since this car lives only two doors down from our residence here - and is still chugging away BTW - there is a pretty good chance that I, an obvious complete stranger,  could run into the owner whilst sporting a shirt with a picture of his car parked on his street.

 What would I think if the positions were reversed ??
 

 

 It could be a tad surreal.
 

 

Okay.  Got the tee-shirt thing off my chest.  What's left? 

 Oh yes, the ants.



 

One of the first things you notice is that there is no shortage of insect life here. The climate is right for it all year, and the rooms are half outside by design. For those of us used to a sub-zero winter that freezes out the ants and bees and such for a good part of the year the constant presence of these extremely small but completely ubiquitous insects seems alarming at first. What I'm really starting to appreciate is how essential they are. Yes, you are well advised to put any opened food packages into ziplock bags or the fridge, but any other biological matter that would become garbage underfoot disappears with surprising rapidity. A small crumb of potato chip or a drop of wine is cleaned up under your nose by maids and butlers who are almost too small to see. My LSBH certainly does not share my benign fascination with these Borg-like creatures, however.

 

 

 

Okay, on to the last items for this last blog from Merida. Carolyn, I haven't been archiving my riddles since they are in the blog itself and can be  grabbed from there. I will, as soon as I get back, or maybe even a bit while I'm still here, go and gather them together and forward them. As far as a title or such, " The Riddle Cave " seems like a good one. Ill start thinking more on that, though.

 

There won't be one this time. Once we are back in our own cave to continue to get this new kitchen odyssey into its final stages, Ill get the riddle stick out again. The first one will probably be about something cold and forbidding or warm and appealing, I'm sure.



Okay, that's all he wrote.



Don




Davy Crockett - blogs.evergreen.edu
Beetles - loyalkng.com
Shea Stadium shirt - backwardglances.com
Spam shirt - forums.sherdog.com
Borg - manhattaninfidel.com